Want to Fix the Housing Crisis? Start With the Homes We Already Have.

There’s a housing crisis in America.

Everyone knows it. The headlines talk about rising rent, home prices soaring through the roof, and a supply problem that feels impossible to fix. But what fewer people talk about is the millions of homes we’re losing simply because they aren’t being repaired.

Right now, across the country, houses are being abandoned. Not because people want to leave, but because they have no choice. The Joint Center for Housing Studies recently reported that 6.7 million households are living in homes that don’t meet basic safety standards. That means no heat in the winter. Electrical systems that haven’t been updated in decades. Leaking roofs, caving-in floors, and even mold creeping through the walls​.

And for many, these are the homes that have been passed to them through generations. The places they were raised or the place they raised their family. Or both. And for an even greater population, these are only homes they can afford.

And when they become unlivable? People lose their homes, their stability, and the neighborhoods they’ve spent their entire life creating. 

At a state and federal level, leaders have spent years talking about how to solve the affordable housing crisis. More construction. More rental assistance. More first-time homebuyer programs. And sure, all of those things matter. But what happens to all the people who’ve spent their lives living in a home that’s now falling apart around them and they have no resources to stop it?

They lose the house. It becomes another boarded-up property. A breeding ground for developers to come in, tear it down, and replace it with an unaffordable home. And the cycle continues.

WOSU Public Media called this out in a recent article: “Millions of people across the U.S. live in places that are falling into disrepair, even becoming uninhabitable, making a massive shortage of affordable housing worse. They are disproportionately lower-income and Black or Hispanic, and many are seniors on fixed incomes. But a patchwork of repair programs – federal, state, local and nonprofit – are largely underfunded, with years-long waitlists. It's a crisis that threatens people's health and lives, yet can be invisible from the outside.”​

We talk about affordability, but a home is only affordable if it’s livable.

And the worst part? It’s not just individual families that suffer. Housing deterioration leads to declining neighborhoods. A single house in disrepair can drag down the value of an entire block. When homes become unlivable, local governments struggle to keep up, and what started as a simple repair issue turns into a community-wide crisis.

While policymakers debate and funding falls short, organizations like ours are doing real, tangible work that keeps Indianapolis-based homeowners safe in the places they know and love.

Last year alone, Home Repairs for Good completed 837 repairs, directly helping 419 homeowners. This work was completed by over 600 volunteers, our in-house team, trainees in our Workforce Development Program, and contractors who all came together to take actionable steps to save deteriorating homes from despair. 

The average cost of the repairs we completed? $1,500 per home. That’s it.

Think about that. A home can be saved for a fraction of what it would cost to build a new one.

Ms. S has received a new roof, new HVAC, clearing of vegetation and is now aware of the help she can receive from Home Repairs for Good.

That’s why I’m convinced that the conversation about housing needs to shift. In most news outlets, city hall meetings, and government hearings it’s all about supply, supply, supply. What happened to preservation? 

BY Plus, a workforce development program, posing in front of a home they are getting hands-on construction experience working on.

Every house we let continue to decline is another person pushed into crisis – often, a person barely having enough money to buy the very basic necessities, let alone complete major repairs. 

At Home Repairs for Good, we already know a big part of the solution and have the processes and structure to activate fixing it. 

And I’ll be the first to admit that our work isn’t always flashy. It doesn’t make the news in the same way a big-name developer gets coverage for building a shiny new “affordable” development. But it’s simple, strategic, and – frankly – it works. 

If we want to fix the affordable housing problems for older adults and those with disabilities in Indianapolis, the starting point is incredibly clear. Begin with the homes people already live in.

And if that matters to you? Then join our mission and help us do it.